Godless Dave

Another thought - poor people tend to have more children than middle class or wealthy people. So even if they die younger they're reproducing more.

wdog

Stock,

How could a fractional death rate be higher across ALL age groups? We all have to die sometime, ie in the 90-110 age group I bet the death rate is 100% for both. Just a thought, nothing serious but please supply a link if you have one.

Stocktrader

Optics guy, I do not have a link. I read it somewhere before I started reading these boards. You may well be right about that, from memory it was worst in the early years and evened out in the later years. I will try to find it again.

Godless, I thought you might be right about poor families having more children. I went to <a href="http://ferret.bls.census.gov/macro/032001/faminc/new01_001.htm" target="_blank">Families by Total Money Income in 2000</a>but it showed just the opposite. Mean family size went up with income. That may be a function of single parent households, will see if i can find some better info on that.

just so you guys know, I do not have an axe to grind here. I am just curious

Godless Dave

No problem, hope I didn't come off as too opinionated.

Indifference

This is a good point. But also, we have to take into consideration the society that has too much survival. If everyone survives regardless of disabilities, intelligence, etc. then there are a lot more mouths to feed and a lot more resources alocated to support. And let me again say, just to be sure, i'm not against support for the disadvantaged.

yes, I do believe that there are many factors that define IQ. But one of those factors is definitely heredity. And besides, an intelligent parent is more likely to do the right things: research how to advance their childs potential, read to the child, have more indepth conversations with the child, etc. So it is more a cumulative effect than just simply nature or nurture.

Godless Dave

I can think of at least one example where intelligence was obviously not a prerequisite for getting wealthy - George W. Bush.

Stocktrader

I can think of one that was - Bill Clinton
I cannot stand Clinton, but he is a smart guy

wdog

stocktrader,

Score one for OG!, one for the big dog! Yep, yep, yep.. I'm the man, I'm the man,.. oh yeaaaahhhh...oooo-yahhh, "we are the champions my friend" (Queen song)... WHO'S your daddy? WHO'S your Daddy? "ding dong the wicked witch is dead!" (sing the little people from the wizard of oz as i prance around the computer doing the snoopy dance of spring)

what this means:

1) you owe me $1800.00 and a cold Sam Adams (board rules, ref. see me)
2) your dog stinks more than mine
3) you must refer to me as 'your excellency'

oh, and welcome to the board. what do you think of the dow right now?

[ April 22, 2002: Message edited by: Optics Guy ]</p>

Indifference

1) What makes you think he isn't intelligent? I actually think he is one of the best presidents yet, after Reagan of course.

2) I never said all wealthy people were intelligent. I said intelligent people have an advantage in becoming wealthy

[ April 22, 2002: Message edited by: Indifference ]</p>

Valentine Pontifex

Welcome.
From 2% to 300% is quite a huge spread.
I think you need some more precise numbers. :-)
To some degree yes, but there are a lot of confounding factors. To the degree that being rich has a genetic basis, it can be selected for. BUT there is quite a bit of enviromental and near-random effects as well. Enviromental/cultural effects are almost certainly more significant than the genetic ones in this case.

Another factor is that there is a factor that would reverse the selection. Poor people tend to have more children and have the earlier in life than rich people. This factor is far more significant than merely living a bit longer. Again this is confounded by the fact that enviromental effects come into play. Other thing that comes into play is cause versus effect: some of these people are poor because they made the mistake of having kids before they were ready for them. If they had waited a few years before having kids they in all probablity would have escaped poverty.

Thus biological evolution, to the small extent
that it "favors" anything financial, favors
being poor.

Of course cultural evolution is another subject...